Mulvaney on if he would have voted for budget deal: ‘Probably not’

White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney said it’s unlikely that he would have voted for the budget deal President Trump signed into law last week if he were still a member of Congress.

“Well, probably not,” Mulvaney said during an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” 

“But keep in mind I’m not Congressman Mick Mulvaney anymore. I’m much closer to [House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark] Meadows, who you’re going to have on the show in a little bit, when I was member of Congress.”

A former Republican House member from South Carolina, Mulvaney, now the director of the Office of Management and Budget, was known in Congress as a fiscal hawk focused on reducing federal deficits.

{mosads}But the law signed by Trump last week eases restraints on federal spending, almost certainly leading to larger federal shortfalls. The bill lets Congress boost spending for both defense and nondefense programs by $300 billion over the next two years while suspending the debt ceiling for one year.

Mulvaney said his job now is to try to get Trump’s agenda passed.

“And right now, the top priority for this president was getting the Defense Department the money necessary to defend the nation,” he said.

Trump announced the signing of the budget law on Twitter, saying the country’s military will be “stronger than ever before.”